Over the last few months we have often talked about changes in the executive ranks of Apple, a company that has a certain tradition of stability at its top. Data in hand, from mid-2022 to today, about a dozen executives have left Cupertinomany vice presidents, positions immediately below senior vice presidents reporting directly to Tim Cook.
The changes have affected various sectors: industrial design, the online Apple Store, sales in emerging markets, cloud, privacy, services. 11 high-profile positions in which top management has changed, most were Apple “veterans” with at least 15 years of career. In recent years, changes of this magnitude have affected a maximum of 1 or 2 positions in a 12-month period.
Apple, in a certain sense, has also “taken advantage” of this situation to organize itself in a slightly different way, where possible. Of course, there have been some new hires but in most cases the departures have led Apple to promote people from within or to redistribute responsibilities.
For example, in the case of Evans Hankey, the outgoing head of industrial design, having been unable to find a replacement immediately, it is now all individual members of the design team who report to Jeff Williams, the chief operating officer. There has also been no replacement for the chief privacy officer.
To these voluntary departures, however, others could soon be added. At Apple, in fact, there are still many vice presidents who are getting closer and closer to retirement age. 10 of Apple’s top 12 executives are around the same age. Six of them joined Apple before 2000 and the age difference between Tim Cook (62 years) and his most likely successor, Jeff Williams, is about two years.
According to what was stated by Mark Gurman of Bloomberg, other lower-ranking executives would also be considering the idea of going to other companies or founding their own startup after gaining some experience in Cupertino. Gurman hypothesized several reasons that would be leading to all these layoffs. Among these, greater internal bureaucracy, difficulty in showing off, fewer resources in some sectors, considerable stress due to the organization of the team structure and, last but not least, money.
In fact, after three years of notable gains, Apple’s shares have lost nearly 30% during 2022. And shares play a very important role in an executive’s compensation. Tim Cook, however, hasn’t sold one since 2021.
